


the hanged man

by spikeface



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:12:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikeface/pseuds/spikeface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hurt/Comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hanged man

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://green-postit.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://green-postit.livejournal.com/)**green_postit** , for her saintlike patience and endless enthusiasm.

  
It started with a headache.

Rescuing Pike had been the most difficult task of Kirk’s life, but killing him afterwards had been the easiest, the perfect circumvention of Spock’s power and about as difficult as drowning kittens. Now, with a new crew and a first officer who seemed ready to bide his time, Kirk took the time to explore his current rung on the ladder.

He started with engineering; he’d known Scotty in the Academy, shared his scotch and stolen his inventions. It had been good to find him on that frozen hell of a planet, better to set him on the Enterprise with a bit of bribery and murder. Better yet, Kirk knew Scotty to be a man of almost no ambition as long as his fire was fed. Kirk told him that as long as he could push the warp to eleven he could airlock whomever he wanted.

Sulu and Chekov came next. Kirk liked them, owed his life to both of them, and trusted neither of them. The gold shirts were bad enough -- you didn’t wear it without murderous ambition -- but Kirk saw himself in both of them. When he smiled at them they smiled back, and Kirk knew he’d best keep his phaser set to kill when he was on the bridge.

Science he left to Spock, willing to let those waters cool. He had a hunch Spock preferred second in command, and might be one of the few people in the fleet intelligent enough to recognize it. In the meantime Kirk could let him establish his role in the labs, agonize whomever he needed to and grow comfortable with his pet projects.

Linguistics was bittersweet. He and his dick didn’t deny the simple pleasure of watching Uhura grit her teeth and call him “Captain,” but the fact remained that she’d helped him on the bridge when she hadn’t had to. She’d smiled at him at the end of his visit, like she knew what he was thinking. Her hand had lingered on her knife, her eyes on his lips. Linguists were tricky like that, all implication and no content. Kirk left quickly.

Sickbay he saved for last. Kirk hadn’t met Puri or the new CMO, McCoy; he preferred to heal himself with his own stash of medical supplies, let his wounds scar. Only the nurses had been around -- politely ignoring him -- when he’d done his number on Pike.

The nurses were still there when he returned, tantalizing in their skimpy uniforms under the white coats. Nurses were the only women to forego a knife, preferring to keep a hypo at their thighs instead. Kirk perused them idly: he might have a bit of fun and teach a lesson at the same time after he finished threatening his CMO.

Then he saw the doctor.

Dr. Leonard McCoy stood like he was selling something: chin jutted out, light sharp on his cheekbones and soft on his eyelids. He was studying a broad PADD and worrying a stylus with his lips -- just a hint of tooth, the way Kirk liked his blowjobs. His uniform fit him like a glove, pulled tight across his chest and wrinkled just so around the juts of his hips. Kirk wanted to drag him around by his sash, throw him over a biobed and fuck him until he screamed.

He drifted back to that pretty face. McCoy was studying him.

Kirk hopped onto a biobed in the center of the room and crooked a finger. McCoy’s expression darkened but he dropped the stylus into his pocket next to a hypo and came over, the large PADD folded under one arm, the other one akimbo. He nodded tersely. “Captain.”

“Doctor.”

He waited. McCoy’s face twisted with irritation almost immediately. “You here for something?”

“Oh, yes.” Kirk spread his legs. He had the attention of the entire staff, now, could feel their eyes on him.

McCoy tilted his head, lashes low on his cheekbones. Kirk gripped the biobed, distracted his audience with a smile and himself with thoughts of breaking down that casual arrogance.

“Describe the symptoms for me,” McCoy said.

“Describe the symptoms for me, _what?_ ,” asked Kirk, voice low as his cock started to thicken.

“Describe the symptoms for me, _please_.”

Kirk laughed. “I don’t think I like your attitude, doc.”

“And I don’t like men who murder the sick and injured, _Captain_ \-- but you don’t see me complaining.” McCoy smiled tightly.

A normal captain would have asked for McCoy’s agonizer. A strict one would have sent him to the booth.

Kirk grabbed McCoy’s carefully coiffed hair and yanked him to his knees.

McCoy hissed but didn’t struggle, dropped his PADD. One hand went to the floor for balance, and he wrapped the other around Kirk’s wrist. He had smooth fingertips, Kirk noticed idly, before tearing McCoy’s hand off him. McCoy didn’t resist.

Maybe he liked being punished.

But no, there was no tell-tale bulge. Kirk preferred that. It was far more fun to make them want it when he was in the mood.

“How about this, doc?” Kirk undid his sash with his free hand, moved on to his fly. His cock strained against the zipper. “You going to complain about this?”

McCoy’s lip curled as he stared at Kirk’s crotch. “Don’t see much to complain about.”

Kirk laughed, backhanded McCoy across the face with his free hand. “Open up.”

McCoy twisted into a full body snarl, and then crumpled as he came to the inevitable realization that he could backtalk Kirk into next week and it would only mean more punishment. His bow of a mouth melted into an O, and Kirk guided his cock in.

McCoy had hair made for gripping, soft and thick, and his sharp tongue turned smooth and desperate on Kirk’s cock. He was messy, spit dripping down his chin, and he had no rhythm, but Kirk had been expecting that. The only men who talked back this stupidly were ones who’d somehow missed out on the proper mouth-fucking every cadet deserved -- probably somebody’s son, thought that actually mattered in the cruel depths of space. Kirk had met a hundred of them as a lowly cadet, planned to tear apart two hundred more.

Still, there was something off about McCoy, not quite run of the mill.

Kirk slid his cock all the way to the back of McCoy’s throat, easy as fucking cunt. McCoy was going red in the face but it was all frothing humiliation, nostrils flared and eyes narrowed into slits. There was no panicked grip twisting Kirk’s pants, no feverish working in his throat -- just the rhythmic bulging as Kirk filled it over and over with his cock.

Kirk loved that. His orgasm twisted lazily around his guts, gathered in his balls.

But there was a fucked up kind of contradiction going on here. McCoy moved with the agonized clumsiness of a man who’d never been forced into a blowjob learning curve -- but he had almost no gag reflex to speak of. That kind of elasticity, no matter what the porn vids claimed, only came with painful repetition. McCoy was probably ashamed of the professional dick-licking that had gotten him this far, that in the depths of space all a surgeon’s skill didn’t mean as much as a tight throat, cock pillow lips and those wide eyes staring up at him like he was a fucking _god_.

Kirk had to brace himself against the biobed when he came, toes splayed in his boots and balls tight against McCoy’s chin, one hand twisted in McCoy’s hair and the other holding the nape of his neck. McCoy swallowed spurt after spurt of Kirk’s come convulsively.

He waited a few more punishing moments before letting his cock slip out of McCoy’s mouth.

“And _that_ is how we respect our superiors.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” hoarsed McCoy as he stood.

Then he hypo’d Kirk right in the neck.

He had McCoy on the ground before he could move away, one hand twisting his wrist away until he dropped the hypo and the other shoving his phaser into his mouth. McCoy didn’t resist, went down as easily as if he weighed nothing.

About to pull the trigger, Kirk froze.

His headache was gone.

McCoy was triumphant even with his jaw cracked wide and ridiculous around the phaser.

“Well?” He nudged the barrel slightly further down McCoy’s throat, finally saw him struggle not to gag. His cock was still a few minutes from getting itself up again, but he could wait, watch those girly pink lips stretch around the unforgiving metal for a while. “It’s not going to suck itself.”

Kirk looked around, saw the nurses watching, sculpted in their stillness and their flat expressions. One tilted her head, a particularly cold-eyed woman with a whimsical twist in her blonde hair, and Kirk knew with a jolt to his cock that none of them would make any move to help, not even if Kirk took out his knife and started stabbing.

He looked down again, saw nothing but glaring misery in McCoy’s eyes as he laved his tongue around the tip of the phaser, and realized they’d met before.

888888

McCoy had been covered in scruff and self-pity then, reeked of alcohol as he’d slammed into his seat.

“I may throw up on you.”

“Don’t.”

McCoy had splashed vomit all over Kirk’s shoes when one cadet had sliced another’s ear off across the aisle. Kirk had ripped off a swathe of McCoy’s sweater, wiped the spew off and turned away, assuming that would be the last he’d see of him.

Starfleet changed a man; even Kirk had found that. McCoy should have been turned long ago, on his knees and spitting come from a dozen different men, deciding that he could be more than this and had the means to. He was brilliant and creative, tight muscle in his broad shoulders and a surgeon’s skill in his hands. His inventory was full of poison, and his nurses were psychopaths. He was charming and stubborn and almost obscene, sharp teeth under the soft lips.

There had been no side effects to the hypo, no negotiations for the relief of pain. It had barely stung.

It didn’t make McCoy worthwhile, but it did make him interesting. Kirk wasn’t in the habit of letting his itches go unscratched, especially when they were as handsome as McCoy.

888888

McCoy answered his comm in his office, just as Kirk expected. His schedule was so regular that Kirk’s spies had laughed as they’d reported it: he worked himself until exhaustion, hid in his office for hours more, and spent his free time with whiskey.

“Another headache, Captain?”

“My quarters. Five minutes.”

McCoy took half an hour, looking tired and rumpled when he arrived. Kirk’s cock throbbed against his pants. “You’re late.”

McCoy ran a hand through his hair. “Lieutenant Uhura had sprained her hand. I had to fix it.”

“You always do what Lieutenant Uhura tells you?” Kirk rolled the title out, let it prick the way inferior rank always did.

McCoy stiffened as expected. “Her pet Vulcan was with you. You ever not do what he tells you?”

“I could have you boothed for that.” Kirk didn’t want to necessarily, far preferred to mete out his own punishment, but he was curious what McCoy thought was protecting him. No one else on the ship -- except maybe Spock, Sulu, or Uhura -- was ever that bold.

“You could have me boothed for anything.” Kirk waited for the dare.

Nothing.

“Keep that in mind.” He poured them drinks. McCoy watched Kirk suspiciously as he took it, but didn’t even glance at the glass before taking a long sip. Kirk admired the clean lines of McCoy’s throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed without the slightest hint of fear.

Curiouser and fucking curiouser.

McCoy cleared his throat when he was done, set the glass down and then stepped back a few paces, rubbed his hands on his pants like a kid. “So what’s the crisis?”

His voice was even -- earnest. Did he think he could make up for insubordination with band-aids? “You’re not here on business, doc.”

McCoy smiled grimly. “I doubt I’m here on pleasure, either.”

Kirk beckoned him closer.

McCoy took a few grudging steps and stopped again. “What do you want from me?”

Kirk shoved him onto the bed. He was hoping for the chance to wrestle McCoy’s clothes off, but McCoy stripped passively under his hands. Fucker. He got McCoy on his knees, knelt between them, and tied his hands to the bed frame. Gold sparkles were the dumbest thing he’d ever had to wear, but the sash had its uses. He wrapped each end around McCoy’s wrists and looped it over the headboard, with enough give to flip him over but not enough for McCoy to reach his cock. He could escape, if he tried.

McCoy had an amazing back, sun-brown even in the dark of space. Kirk had expected more freckles, was surprised to find only smooth tan.

“Lights one hundred percent,” he ordered, feeling McCoy not quite flinch under his hands. McCoy only looked better under the harsh brightness, shifting muscle Kirk had yet to see him use. He ran his hands down the long muscles next to McCoy’s spine, groped the cheeks of his ass with one hand as he slicked himself up with the other. McCoy had a great ass, smooth and built to be fucked.

McCoy glared at him over his shoulder.

“Eager for it, aren’t you,” Kirk taunted.

A sharp thrust past the grudging resistance strangled McCoy’s reply. Kirk loved that first push in, the shock of heat and tight and his dick _in_ someone else. McCoy took it like he was made for Kirk; there was something utterly correct about McCoy’s hips splayed wide, his strangled gasps as he struggled to adjust. Kirk didn’t let him, started an easy in-out that pierced painfully deep, hit McCoy’s sweet spot just as hard. Foreplay had its perks but this was what Kirk lived for, filling someone up as hard as they could take, every hot thrust an undeniable message. He liked it best when they shoved back despite themselves, flinching into every traitorous spark of pleasure.

McCoy gripped the sheets and held his breath, a tense challenge.

Kirk pulled out, flipped him over. McCoy went surprisingly easy, all weightless give, wrists twisting with the sash. He had long, lean legs Kirk wanted wrapped around his torso, tugging ever closer as McCoy’s resolve crumbled under lust and hatred. He shoved in again, wrapped one hand around McCoy’s cock and the other in his hair, tilted his head back until his breath rasped, his throat convulsing. Kirk sucked on the point of his Adam’s apple, bit into the strong lines of his tendons, bit harder when McCoy moaned. His cock was hard and leaking in Kirk’s hand, jumping every time Kirk rubbed against the head. Kirk laughed into his ear, waited for McCoy to snarl through his orgasm.

“You sure this isn’t about business?” McCoy asked, every word jolted out of him by Kirk’s cock.

Kirk stilled in him, pulled McCoy’s hips snug against his. “You looking to get paid?”

It wasn’t a deal he’d considered: he’d reward McCoy on his own time, if at all. But wanting a deal was a concession on McCoy’s part, that he didn’t like it and wouldn’t give it up without a fight.

McCoy shook his head. He began to speak but Kirk didn’t let him, shifted his hand from his hair to his mouth, thumb punishing and tight under McCoy’s chin. McCoy’s breath was hot on his fingers; Kirk knew it would come now, the frustration and humiliation, the self-righteous burn under Kirk’s cock and hand and oppressive weight. He leaned forward, bent McCoy almost in half, let him appreciate every thick inch as he shoved in nice and slow.

McCoy closed his eyes.

“Look at me,” Kirk demanded. He wanted to see it, to taste it with his eyes as McCoy’s hatred unfolded. He jerked McCoy off roughly, pounded into him right where he knew it would burn, and waited.

But all that happened was that McCoy spurted into his hand, eyes open and serene in orgasm.

Hard dick still in him, Kirk turned McCoy’s head forcefully. He shoved his come-covered palm in front of McCoy’s mouth. “Clean it.”

McCoy licked slow and thorough, ticklish against Kirk’s palm but Kirk could tell he wasn’t trying to be. There was nothing teasing in him, just an agonized exhaustion as he wiped every last sticky drop off Kirk’s hand and swallowed it all down.

Kirk could put his hips into it now that McCoy had come, fuck him right into nauseous agony and his own orgasm. He tucked his face into McCoy’s neck, wanted to smell the acid of McCoy’s hatred as it bubbled up with his every push, all that self-righteous calm twisted under Kirk’s cock.

McCoy smelled like an old man’s cologne, the clinical bitterness of disinfectant.

Kirk bit his lips until he smelled the tang of blood, sucked grotesque marks into McCoy’s neck and slid into his tight ass hard enough to make rank sweat run down McCoy’s back, down his own. McCoy’s hips and thighs were taught with muscle, too tense to bruise, but Kirk gripped anyway, scratched dents into his skin with blunt fingernails.

Kirk came hard, every muscle tensed and burning with effort, his orgasm spiraling out from his gut so ferociously it left him gasping.

When he finally elbowed up he saw McCoy was gripping the headboard so hard his hands must have been numb. It was the way a man gripped when he was dying to kill. It always started in the hands, that blinding need to lash out.

He untied the sash, held McCoy’s narrow chin to get his attention. “Look under the bed.”

“Worried about monsters?” McCoy asked as he rolled, gingerly for all his bluster. Kirk saw the ache in him as he knelt next to the bed, knew it’d linger for days, festering until McCoy gave into it. All he had to do was sit back and watch as McCoy broke.

But why wait?

Kirk pounced, slipped between McCoy’s knees and placed one hand on the the small of his back to press him down and keep him like that: knees and shoulders down, cheek bent against the floor. “Tell me what you see.”

“A lot of dust. Some sex toys. Your diary.”

Just for that he ordered him to get the dildo that vibrated, a pair of handcuffs, and a thick metal ring.

He chained McCoy’s hands behind him first, just enough to restrain, not enough to hurt. The ring around his cock was just enough pressure to hold back relief, not a torment in itself. Kirk wanted McCoy’s focus on one source, harder and more insistent than all the bite marks and bruises, than every shiver against the cold. He lubed the dildo generously and eased it in gently, let McCoy shift as he struggled to wrap his mind around the machine up his ass. There was no getting used to it, Kirk knew. It was worse than useless to try, an exercise in hatred as the hours stretched on and the vibrations grew ever more unforgiving.

“Comfy?”

“Very.”

Kirk switched the vibrator the highest setting.

McCoy jumped at the jolt of vibration, so Kirk shushed him and gave him an ironic little pat -- salt on the wounds. He took a hot shower, set an early alarm, and passed out to the gentle lullaby of the vibrations and McCoy’s groans. The lights were twenty percent, enough to see an attacker in, and his sleep was light just in case, but Kirk knew that any man with his hands and cock tied and a buzzing thing in his ass had more pressing problems than murder. It robbed every thought, amplified every feeling. McCoy would be a different person in the morning, and Kirk could move on.

McCoy had shifted by the morning, had obviously tried to find a spot where the thing didn’t buzz directly against his prostate. He knelt awkwardly, shadows deep under his eyes, lips full and lax as he panted. His cock was dripping, heavy and full. Kirk knew it had to hurt.

He smiled. “You want to come?”

“Please.”

Kirk pulled off the ring, gripped the base of McCoy’s cock just as tight as it had. “You going to be a good boy?”

McCoy shifted on his knees.

Kirk squeezed until McCoy squirmed and gritted out, “Please, Captain.”

“There we go.” Kirk let go of McCoy’s cock and grabbed his own, his other hand in McCoy’s sweaty hair. “Now you get to show me how much you want it.”

McCoy sucked messily, but Kirk liked its honesty. He’d fucked an endless stream of mouths since he’d made captain, but no one had understood what Kirk’s dick in his mouth meant like McCoy did. It would be an agonizing epiphany, especially for a big man like him, who’d probably only fucked women until they squealed. McCoy had the patience for women, and the muscle too, probably a gentleman.

Kirk thought about the hostages they took from foreign planets, the frail princesses. He could have McCoy fuck one of them, harder and meaner until she was shrieking and bleeding and every thrust wedged McCoy open further, bile spewing out his eyes while Kirk watched.

Kirk pulled out before he came, spurted all over McCoy’s face. McCoy took it silently, eyes closed, lips shiny with spit and trembling with need and humiliation. His cock was hot when Kirk took it, from blood and lust -- and hatred, Kirk was sure. He jerked hard.

McCoy twitched through his dry orgasm, hips thrusting erratically. Kirk let him catch his breath, spent his time idly thumbing the come off of McCoy’s face, slipping it into McCoy’s mouth for cleaning. McCoy still looked wrecked when he was done, covered in sweat and shiny traces of come, exhaustion written into every sagging slope of his body.

Kirk tilted his chin up, wished he’d left the come on McCoy’s face so everyone could see it. Next time, maybe.

“Rise and shine, McCoy.” Kirk undid his cuffs, threw his pants at him as he pulled the vibrator out. “Time for breakfast.”

Kirk ate breakfast, and McCoy didn’t.

“You had yours already,” he explained as he handed McCoy his empty tray. He gestured to McCoy’s lips and smirked.

Kirk dug in, and McCoy spent the time sullenly hunched over the tray, hands folded over it and elbows perched on the edge. Kirk allowed it, let the doubtlessly impressive coals of McCoy’s anger heat until he’d chased every last scrap of food from his bowl and licked the spoon. Then: “Hungry?”

McCoy shook his head, didn’t look up.

“Something you want to say, doc?” he asked.

McCoy swallowed. Kirk waited, ready for the vitriol McCoy’s every scowl promised.

“You need more fiber,” he said, low like it was mutiny. “Try some vegetables.”

888888

His spies found nothing, but Kirk knew that there had been a protector for McCoy somewhere -- Puri, maybe, or Boyce. Maybe Pike himself, from the way he’d stared at McCoy’s empty office as he’d burbled out his life under Kirk’s knife. Someone had to have kept him sheltered, blind to the reality that Starfleet turned men into officers or corpses.

But even the most caring protector made your blood simmer under your skin, demanded a semen-bitter reminder of your place now and then just to keep you angry and ambitious.

Kirk demanded far more than that.

888888

Three days later McCoy showed up outside Kirk's quarters in his blood-spattered scrubs, in need of a shave and a good night’s sleep. He looked naive as any cadet on his first day, expecting his roommate to be any sort of friend.

“They kicked me out of my rooms. Scott says you did it.”

“I did.”

McCoy made a curt, impatient gesture. “And?”

“You complaining?”

“Of course I’m fucking complaining! You want me to live in my office?”

“I want you to beg for a place to stay.” Nothing pissed people off more than straightforward agenda.

McCoy paused right on cue. But instead of incensed defensiveness, Kirk found something unexpected in the tilt of his eyebrows. He nodded, lips tight as he looked away. “Yeah. Yeah, all right.”

He started to walk away.

Kirk chuckled. “McCoy.”

He turned.

Kirk glanced at the ground in front of him, in the hallway where anyone could see. “Beg.”

McCoy sized him up, measuring his intent. Kirk knew the picture he made, arms crossed, eyebrows raised and head tilted up. _This is the way it is, son._

McCoy didn’t kneel so much as fall to his knees, strangely silent in the impact. “Please,” he spat, eyes trained on the ground.

Kirk leaned against the doorframe, cock already starting to harden from the sight and the soft huffs of breath against his crotch. “You can do better than that.”

“Please, _Captain_ ,” McCoy tried again, as if no one had taught him to beg.

“You suck at this.” Kirk was surprised, had assumed that dropping filth and “if you please, sir” was part of every cadet’s training -- the alternative was never worth it. Even Kirk, who’d given up flinching for good one dusty summer in Iowa, had found it useful to learn a pretty phrase or two.

“If you wanted someone good at it, why pick me? I’m sure there’s at least one pathetic bootlicker on this tin can who’d be right for the job.”

“Right you are.” Kirk shifted against the doorframe, held out his right foot. “So get to it.”

McCoy huffed, but he’d walked into this one and he knew it. His hair fell forward as he bent, but not enough to hide the shocking pink of his tongue against Kirk’s boot. Kirk felt only the gentlest pressure against his instep. Hands braced to either side and head bent, McCoy could be a penitent, bowed in prayer to his god. McCoy had the face for religion, dark eyes burning with fervor, soft lips mouthing fierce devotion. It was a small step from religion to obsession.

McCoy’s tongue crawled along his heel.

“Enough.”

McCoy stepped into his parlor obediently. He wasn’t even armed, no hyposprays, knives, or phaser. Kirk stared at his agonizer and thought about demanding it just to teach McCoy the lesson he somehow missed during orientation week.

“Strip,” he said instead.

McCoy folded his clothes neatly again, like he’d learned nothing from last time. Kirk did love a good challenge. “So what are you going to do for me to get your rooms back?”

McCoy lowered his head, wary. “What do you want?”

Kirk backhanded him. “I’ll ask the questions.”

McCoy looked better than ever stripped down to all that strength, his muscles tensing and rippling as he crossed his arms. He licked blood from the edge of his mouth and jerked his chin towards Kirk’s right hand, where a ragged scar wended between his second and third knuckle -- a reminder from Pike. “I can get rid of that for you.”

Kirk rubbed it absently. “Cute. Grab the lube -- top drawer.”

McCoy obeyed, held it out with arm stretched out, as far from Kirk as possible.

“Oh no, it’s for you.”

McCoy arched an eyebrow, cocked his head just a little as if uncomprehending, eyes narrowed in that way that meant he understood and didn’t want to.

“Unless you want me to fuck you dry.”

He had to clasp his hands behind his back as McCoy fucked himself with his fingers, grimacing at the stretch and burn of humiliation. Holding out had never been Kirk’s style, but he could for a goal like this. He’d fuck McCoy through the mattress to compensate, coiled up all that energy inside him for now. McCoy had long fingers, perfect for pressing on his prostate as he scissored and stretched. He’d try to miss it at first, save himself the indignity, but it’d grow harder and harder as he got Kirk’s cock every day, as the spot grew agitated and swollen, impossible to miss. And then the real fun started, when he started hating it with real force, wanting it just as much.

“On the bed,” he ordered when McCoy’s face had gone red with humiliation. “Grab the headboard.”

Kirk watched him lie down, propped up on his elbows, head bowed and vertebrae baring through his neck. Kirk forced himself to turn away.

He kept a belt of Shraw leather for shore leave and recreation, with all of Terran leather’s force and give and none of its high maintenance. Kirk had his fair share of toys -- most of which he’d inherited from Pike, that kinky bastard -- but he’d always enjoyed the basics. There was a thrill in converting regular things into sex tools, the kind McCoy could see every day and shudder at. He wanted to fuck up that doctorly calm, crawl under his skin and set him wriggling. And fuck, just watching McCoy lie there was practically foreplay, the broad shoulders and fine fingers, miles of tan skin over smooth muscle, the way McCoy’s throat jumped as he tried to keep his cool.

Kirk doubled the belt in his hand and crawled back onto the bed.

McCoy had an ass that was meant for abuse: tan and firm, between narrow hips and long straight thighs. Kirk wanted them bowlegged from being bent around his torso. He could have McCoy ride him, thighs splayed out around his hips, snarling with each jolting thrust and pressing back down just as hard.

“I want you to count.” The second worst set of five words, after, “Thank me for each one.”

He knew McCoy wouldn’t do either -- not at first.

The belt snapped down with a crack that always surprised him. McCoy barely flinched at it. Good.

He kept up a steady rhythm, his cock jerking at every bark of the leather against McCoy’s skin. McCoy took it like a man, so Kirk forced himself to go slow, to savor every welt and wriggle as McCoy started to rock with every blow, grunting against the pain. Adrenaline rushed through him as his muscles burned and his cock pressed against his pants. He brought the belt down harder, faster, wanted McCoy frothing under it until all that surgical intensity was on him, cracking under the strain until it fragmented.

“One.”

Bingo.

It took a few more echoing slaps before McCoy gritted out, “Four. Thank you.”

“Thank you, what?”

“Sir,” he spat.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” He brought the belt down harder than before.

“Five. Thank you, sir.” McCoy was starting to lose it, every syllable a hiss of breath from between clenched teeth. A grimace looked good on him, with the hint of dimples around his pressed lips, eyes narrowed predatorily and jaw clenched. His ass was red all over, clenching rhythmically. The first welts were starting to bruise, the rest hot ridges following the curve of his ass. Kirk wanted to lick them, feel their heat.

“I think you mean ‘one.’”

McCoy swore. Kirk swung.

It took twenty more for McCoy’s voice to break under the count, the “sir” melted under his desperation. Kirk pitched the belt to the ground, light headed with the need to grab those red marks, to fuck all that heat. McCoy’s cock was soft, but he was gasping and overwhelmed with sensation and it was a fucking cakewalk to shove his cock in and hit his prostate like clockwork. He hit McCoy’s ass with every thrust, shoved moans of him every time he slammed his hips into the welts, had him bucking anyway by the end. McCoy’s cock in his hand went slippery with precome, hot and throbbing as his ass, the rigid veins ripe for Kirk’s nails. Kirk held out until McCoy was close enough to coming that Kirk could almost taste it, bit his shoulder as he spewed inside him and collapsed right on top of him. McCoy’s curse was thick with misery, so Kirk let him wallow in it for a few panting moments before shoving to the side.

McCoy rolled easily under his hands, hissing as his ass landed on the rumpled sheets. Kirk pushed him down and swallowed his cock, slipped one hand down to his hole to push his fingers inside and lay the other across his hips to press down. McCoy bucked at the pain, more at Kirk running his tongue along the underside of his cock. He laved his tongue over the head, lapped at the precome, pressed hard into McCoy’s hole, still slicked and stretched. Suddenly McCoy’s hands touched lightly on the back of his skull. Fucking finally. Kirk crowed inwardly, waited for McCoy to grip and pull and thrust so he could bare his teeth.

McCoy’s fingers ran through his hair, came to rest ticklishly light on the back of his skull.

Kirk raked his teeth along the head of McCoy’s cock, smiled around it as McCoy howled and yanked his hands away. Kirk had him keening seconds later, jumping under his hands and tongue, straining against Kirk’s arm across his hips until he went death still, every muscle taut as he flooded Kirk’s mouth with come. Kirk swallowed with satisfaction, licked him off as he softened, watched McCoy watch him, mouth open and eyes slitted. He looked thoroughly exhausted, strung out. All the hormones would be leveling off now, leaving him with nothing but the bitter taste of come and resentment. He swallowed. “My room?”

Kirk beamed. Of all the infuriating answers to misery he’d seen, an honest smile was the worst.

“Where the hell am I supposed to sleep?” McCoy’s voice was low and savage.

Kirk moved up and wrapped an arm around him in answer, curled up close enough to hear the curses McCoy muttered. He’d feel it later if McCoy tried to reach for a weapon. There was a knife under Kirk’s pillow, and any idiot would guess that it was there. McCoy would reach for it in the middle of the night, burning with desperate rage, and Kirk would slice his face open and fuck all that raw anger.

McCoy fell asleep almost instantly, totally lax under Kirk’s arm.

Hours later someone shook his shoulder. He snapped from sleep to alert in a heartbeat, reached for the knife reflexively.

But there was only McCoy, naked and bruised, his hand still on Kirk’s shoulder. He brushed it off. “What?”

“You were screaming.” McCoy’s eyes were wide in the darkness. He lay propped up on his elbow, looming over him.

“What’s it to you?”

McCoy shrugged. “It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

Kirk leaned forward slowly, backed McCoy into the pillows until he was cornered and then leveled the knife at his eye. “You got a death wish, doc?”

He hadn’t remembered his dreams in years. But his voice was hoarse, his throat raw when he spoke.

“Do you want some water?”

Kirk shoved him. McCoy was his own weight or more, shouldn’t have budged under the push. But he tumbled to the floor, landed with only the faintest thump. Kirk turned away -- dared him with his bared back -- but he only heard the rustle of McCoy putting his clothes back on, the whir of the door as he left.

888888

It had to lurk somewhere, all the rage that McCoy soaked up and swallowed down. Even the most sheltered officer nursed grudges, and if McCoy had been kept locked in an ivory tower before he wasn’t anymore.

The thing was, McCoy was built to be angry. Kirk watched him in the ship’s gym, running laps like there was something in him to be running from, dropping to the ground and pushing until he was covered in sweat, until his muscles quivered and the angles of his face morphed malevolently. McCoy could have been a soldier in another life -- a general, with his aquiline focus.

Kirk wanted that.

888888

McCoy stayed in Kirk’s rooms, something to fuck into exhaustion and a hot glove for his erections in the morning. He waited for McCoy to wear down, for the resentment to grow as McCoy realized everything that was still locked in his quarters, for every swallow of Kirk’s semen to finally boil. But all that happened was that his extra toothbrush got used, medical PADDs piled up on his desk, and McCoy never wore anything but his uniforms, scrubs, and the bruises Kirk left on him. When three weeks later all Kirk had was a handy sex toy and a whole lot of nothing, it was time for the more direct route.

He’d always preferred that, anyway.

Kirk didn’t include McCoy in the landing parties often. He was a shit negotiator and worse in a battle. He had no head for strategy and healed whoever he got his hands on. He was also an apolitical genius, ran his Sickbay with astounding efficiency and kept the crew up and running with a rate that almost served to counteract Starfleet’s brutal life expectancy. It was smarter to keep him holed up in Sickbay, where his savage nurses could keep an eye on him per Kirk’s orders.

The Irillites were an exception. His spies had briefed him that morning: Cyro Drapoi, in charge of Iril’s dilithium mining, was a notorious hedonist, with a penchant, as it turned out, for human playthings with spirit. Kirk added Spock, McCoy, and a few of the prettier ensigns from science and security, already knowing who Drapoi would pick.

Iril was humid and hot, its citizens humanoid but pale and looming, wet the way the whole planet seemed to be wet. Drapoi greeted them with a bureaucrat’s flawless sycophancy, but Kirk saw the way his eyes crawled over everyone but Spock and smiled to himself. His minions weren’t holding back their leers either; Kirk hoped Drapoi liked to share.

Drapoi led them to his office, and Kirk explained that the empire would be ever so grateful if Iril would double its mining output for a few months. Drapoi did the usual song and dance for his benevolent leaders and quietly waited to be bribed.

Their orders had come with a carrot and a stick, along with a note from Archer that any conveniently misplaced funds would be reimbursed. Kirk had his own version of sweetening the deal, and laughed at the idea of Archer trying to pay it back. “I’m sure I’ve got something that can convince you.”

Drapoi blinked his large black eyes at Kirk, two tongues sliding across his lips before his gaze flicked over to McCoy. “I’d not hold up the empire with any _personal_ dilemmas, but surely you can see how it might take some time to convince my esteemed lords to agree with your wishes, understandable though they might be.”

“We’re in orbit for twenty hours.” Twenty-five, but no need to overplay it. He wanted McCoy burning, not broken.

Drapoi gave an Irillite smile, flattened his ears and bore tiny rows of sharp teeth. “I would only ask fifteen, sir.”

Kirk shrugged, let his hand brush over his phaser in that language everyone spoke. “You break it, you bought it.”

Drapoi tsked, dropped his head demurely -- although he never stopped looking at McCoy. “We know how to be delicate in these matters, Captain.”

Kirk just fucking bet they did. He snapped his fingers. “Hop to it, doc.”

McCoy started. “Captain?”

“You heard the man.”

He was primed for an argument, a smile stored up in his cheeks, a slap already stinging his palm. But McCoy froze, eyes nearly as wide as the Irillite’s. He looked around like he’d only just figured out what they were talking about, as if he’d actually expected to do some healing. He shook his head abortively, like he was clearing his head of a dream.

“Mc _Coy_.”

McCoy swallowed -- fear, pride, the lump of fruitless anger lodged in his throat. Kirk remembered its weight. “Don’t do this, Captain.”

Spock stepped forward. “With respect, Captain, there are more expendable offers than our Chief Medical Officer.”

It was sound advice and Kirk knew it. McCoy was his doctor, and brilliant enough that he’d be hard to replace. Spock would never do anything like this, never shat where he ate; he’d watched Uhura for years and never risked it. But Kirk lived for risk, and he wanted it -- wanted McCoy plotting in Sickbay, hypos loaded with poison, deadly force finally behind his glare.

“Am I hearing mutiny?”

Spock looked down at once. “Never, Captain. As you are aware.”

“Mutiny? Try reason. This is insane. You --”

“Give me your agonizer.”

McCoy stiffened, tight-lipped, all that bluster trapped inside him where it would implode from just a little pain.

“Now.”

McCoy tore it off his belt, handed it over with jerky movements, the closest to defiance Kirk had ever seen in him. Good. He dialed it up to its highest setting, pressed right against McCoy’s chest.

McCoy fell to his knees almost instantly, choking on the pain. Kirk held out long enough to make him pliable for the Irillites, to set him seething afterwards.

“Take him.”

McCoy looked up, eyes wide with pleading Kirk knew he’d never speak. That kind of pride was useless once things started rolling. It would only make the drop harder, turn him faster. That puppy face would be long gone when he returned, buried under alien come. Kirk drank it in for the last time, and then he smiled. “Enjoy.”

McCoy was gone for all fifteen hours.

Kirk spent most of that time on the bridge, one leg crossed over. He could hear Uhura sharpening her nails, watched as Chekov made his not so subtle hand signals to Sulu. One day Kirk knew he’d use them for sabotage, but for now all Sulu did was snicker at jokes that were undoubtedly at Kirk’s expense. Spock soldiered on as ever, taking readings like a robot and staring at Uhura like a man possessed. Routine.

At first it felt like satisfaction. The bug in his boot was finally getting stomped on, and in the meantime it was a daydream to pass the time in the relative safety of a sated bridge crew, in empty space orbiting an obedient planet. Kirk imagined his frothing panic as the Irillites swarmed him. There’d be the extra layer of alien curiosity under their desire: would they try their toys on him to study their differences, fuck him in front of a mirror to admire the contrast? They’d want to examine the human voice range, so different from their own. Would they make him squeal and beg? Could they make him scream?

He’d never screamed for Kirk.

There’d be no way they’d let go once they’d had a piece of him, human skin warm against theirs, and McCoy’s especially smooth. Kirk remembered the feel of it under his hands and lips and teeth. He never let McCoy heal his marks, liked to watch them as they faded into dull rainbows. But sooner or later they disappeared, every plane of him another perfect canvas. The Irillites would be a fool to pass it up.

The Irillites sent in their agreement before they sent back their hostage. Uhura translated it aloud, took care to note that the Irillites were being unnecessarily generous. There was a knowing smirk in the sibilance of her consonants, the kind of thing only a xenolinguist could do. Kirk itched for her agonizer.

“And the hostage?”

“It says ‘he’ll be along,’ Captain.” Uhura’s voice was perfectly, frustratingly cool.

The minutes ticked by.

Kirk had fucked an Irillite a couple times, although he didn’t remember it well. They always had food on them somewhere. Would they be stingy with McCoy, dragging out his torment until he begged for every scrap of relief? Would they choke him? They could make him fight and claw for air until he broke, biting savagely at the hands that held him down. He’d run on primal instinct, blind with the need to defend himself, to destroy the things that were hurting him.

Kirk wanted to see the struggle written on his body. That made it worth the wait, Kirk reminded himself. McCoy would be twisted, inside out with anger.

Only years of forcing control onto himself kept him still when Scotty commed him. “Hostage is on his way, Captain.”

“Send him up.”

McCoy showed up ten long minutes later. He stumbled out of the lift and stopped, squinted under the glaring light of the bridge. His hair was wet and messy, sticky tendrils on his forehead. There were marks along his throat, a small tear in his mouth that gave him a red, lopsided smile. Deep bruises banded his wrists, bite marks in the soft underside of his jaw. He shifted his weight painfully, couldn’t seem to stand still, his hands fluttering uncharacteristically. Kirk smelled alien come and the faint reek of vomit.

“McCoy.” He wanted to see McCoy’s eyes, the lids gone narrow with loathing, something finally behind that ever present scowl. McCoy would bear his teeth, would hate him now, and later Kirk could let him prove it after he’d been tied to the bed.

McCoy looked up. His irises were the same shifting hazel, the rest bloodshot and irritated, the lids puffy -- the semen had only been washed out recently. His lips moved.

“What was that?” Kirk knew what it was; hatred was always whispered at first, as if the words might collapse under the force of the feeling.

“You look like shit.” McCoy’s voice was raw, like he’d been screaming. “Get some rest.”

The silence that followed was bald. He’d known he had an audience in the bridge crew -- always, always -- but none of them even pretended to be paying any attention to their stations. The ship hurtled blindly through warpspace, and the comm unit blinked urgently. Spock, Kirk knew, held himself with the particular kind of stillness that presaged agony.

McCoy swayed on his feet, but he never wavered.

“Get out.”

McCoy limped away. He spent the next eight hours in Sickbay.

If Kirk dreamt that night, no one woke him.

888888

Kirk had heard the phrase “wear your heart on your sleeve,” although everyone knew only fools and widows dared to. Staring at McCoy’s face in mess, Kirk was struck by its shape: the lean curve of McCoy’s jaw, the point in his chin, the triangle of hair that jutted out at the top of his forehead, hidden by the sweep of his bangs.

All the officers on the ship kept their anger tightly leashed, stored for the bedroom and revenge. Only McCoy held his up like a shield, all the smiles his other officers wore like masks furled up tight inside him. He was inverted, a mirrored man.

Kirk didn’t like it.

888888

It was three months before they went on another away mission. Aranae VII was almost as big a wasteland as Delta Vega, except for the mining pits that made it indispensable to the Empire. Usefulness gave the Aranians leverage if they bargained, and they were expert negotiators.

Naturally, Kirk wound up slumming it in an ice cave, with three ensigns dead and another one in an Aranian torture chamber.

McCoy was there too, equipment with him but mostly destroyed from a phaser shot as they’d beat it from the Aranian capital. Kirk knew Spock would come for them, or send a party down. He’d grown accustomed to the freedom of second in command, all of the power but fewer of the assassination attempts. Sulu or Chekov would make their plays but Uhura had both their numbers and she was in Spock’s pocket. Or he was in hers. Kirk didn’t care. All he had to do was wait.

He hated waiting.

McCoy had escaped with him. He’d followed Kirk’s every order to the letter as they’d run, although he’d kept up a steady stream of bitching Kirk could agonize him for. It was contradictory, nonsensical. Borderline insane, if Kirk was honest. He watched McCoy curse at his tricorder, turning it over as gently in his hands as if it were made of butterflies.

His back was turned. Kirk could pounce on him at any moment, ravage his spine with his knife. Kirk could do it no matter which way McCoy faced, but no one who passed the Academy acknowledged it like that. It was practically a dare.

It occurred to Kirk that maybe McCoy didn’t care.

Kirk knew what it was like to live without fear: his own had fallen off a cliff a long time ago, was probably still rusting at the base of it. But McCoy -- he lived like he’d never been taught to fear, never had to confront it or push it down.

“You’re not afraid of me.” He had met people who weren’t -- emperors, madmen. McCoy was no emperor.

McCoy stopped fussing with his tricorder, his words careful: “I’m afraid of a lot of things, Captain.”

He knew that. McCoy ducked away from the ship’s windows, hated transporters and shuttles. “But not _me_.”

McCoy started moving again. His hands were trembling. “Why fear the inevitable?”

Kirk gaped. It was the greatest and most earnest compliment he’d ever been given, equally the most dismissive. His thoughts tumbled into each other, dropping from warp to standstill with painful speed. He opened his mouth and said the first thing that came, “I’ll give you one free one.”

“What?”

It started to take shape in his mind, appealed to him more and more. He grabbed McCoy’s coat, jerked him around and up until McCoy was standing, his face inches from his, his breath misting in Kirk’s eyes. “I know you want to.”

McCoy grasped his wrists, trying to move him away. His efforts were pathetic, unworthy of the muscle Kirk knew was under the layers, that Kirk had licked and bitten and bruised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

McCoy was provoking him now, had to be, to be that deliberately thick. “You look like you could lay a decent punch, even with those soft doctor hands.”

It thrilled him, now. There was a novelty in letting himself be punched. It was different than throwing himself into a fight, even one he knew he’d lose. He could let McCoy hit him and then he could move on, could know what went on under that soft skin, could weigh it in the force of his punch.

“No,” said McCoy.

That made sense. He tested his crew all the time, made a web of weakness where there was none, let the more moronically ambitious of his crew hang themselves in it. “No one’s here to see us, McCoy. I don’t even have an agonizer on me. One hit, no repercussions.”

He wanted McCoy to hit him, wanted the rush of endorphins that came with pain. He’d remember it every time he fucked McCoy afterwards, let him feel that same burn and tingle.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Right. Just like you don’t swallow my come when I tell you, like you don’t take it up the ass and beg for more every time.”

McCoy’s hands were twitching. Kirk knew what that meant, had spent years learning how to draw that anger out from his finest officers. All McCoy needed was a push.

Kirk socked him right in the jaw.

McCoy rocked under the blow, staggered back a few steps and brought his hand to his jaw -- but inquiringly, not protectively. He worked it a few times, and then dropped his hand again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I just punched you in the face, McCoy. What are you going to do about it?”

McCoy squinted at him. “Did the Aranians give you something?”

Kirk hit him again, right in the diaphragm. McCoy bent double immediately, and this time he stayed hunched over, hands flying to his stomach in that semi-fetal gesture. His hood had flipped over his head as he bent, hid his face. He gave McCoy the time to catch his breath. “Still want to ask after my health?”

McCoy straightened. “Are you fucking insane?”

Kirk pushed him this time, hard enough to send him sprawling on the unforgiving ice. It didn’t take much; McCoy fell like he was made of glass, all air inside. He landed gracelessly but silently, and scrambled to his feet in an instant. Kirk let him, every muscle primed as he waited for McCoy to spring out at him.

McCoy looked murderous, eyes suddenly dark, the muscles in his jaw clenched. Blood dripped down from the side of his mouth, and he wiped it off, smearing it down his chin grotesquely. His hair was messy, chest heaving.

He was magnificent.

“Hit me.”

“No.” But the syllable crumbled under McCoy’s anger, rough and raw.

Kirk tore the snaps and zippers of his coat open. “Hit me.”

McCoy was silent, his every expressive feature etched with anger.

“Do it!” Kirk bellowed.

McCoy rippled like a building before it collapsed, like a star before it imploded. It was _there_ , everything Kirk wanted, right there under the surface. McCoy shook his head but Kirk knew you couldn’t shake that kind of anger once it had a hold of you, once it had been beaten deep enough inside. McCoy raised his hand, and now he’d rush, hot and snarling and --

“No.”

What?

McCoy breathed, and it stopped. One deep breath, in and out, and it was all gone. “No. You hear me, James Kirk?”

Kirk punched him in the face. McCoy shook his head, spat blood. “No.”

Kirk hit him again, hard enough to send him to the ground again. He followed McCoy down, landed between his thighs and hands heavy on McCoy’s chest. This time McCoy laughed, high and hysterical. It whined through Kirk’s ears, alien and incensing.

McCoy’s clothes shred easily under Kirk’s knife. He cut McCoy haphazardly, the blood messy everywhere. McCoy writhed but didn’t fight him, cursed under each slice and didn’t fight him.

His perfect skin had gone rough with goosebumps under the frozen air. Every muscle tensed under Kirk’s palms, strong and deadly. McCoy could have been beautiful, could have been an animal.

Kirk bit him, and McCoy’s hands went to his hair, long fingers threading gently through it. He let go when Kirk reared up again, held his shoulders instead, kept holding as Kirk kept hitting. Kirk barely felt him -- McCoy’s hands had no weight in them, no grip. It was as if he wasn’t even there.

Kirk hated it.

McCoy jerked and shivered as Kirk tore his pants open, pulled them down to his thighs and then sliced them right down the middle. His cock was limp under his underwear, under his hand after Kirk cut that away too. It was the last straw, this unbearable softness, and Kirk shoved his fingers up McCoy’s ass ferociously, again and again until they went in smooth with blood. McCoy made noise but it was low, trapped in his chest. He didn’t swear or threaten or beg, just made fists with white knuckles against the ice.

Kirk shoved his cock in, gasped at the hot pull of McCoy’s ass after the shocking chill of the air. There was the boiling heat he’d been looking for, hot as rage. He fucked McCoy blindly, tearing at his hair and biting bruises into his neck and shoulders. McCoy’s shoulders were all muscle, his arms ropy with it, but lay still and passive under Kirk’s hands, under his teeth. The friction of his ass was unbelievable, tight with pain and not enough lube. McCoy flinched but never flinched away, let Kirk thrust as hard as he wanted. He bottomed out with every stroke, pressed his balls against the smooth, vulnerable skin of McCoy’s ass.

Kirk’s orgasm was fierce, ripped through him hard enough to make him collapse.

He came to himself long seconds later, long enough that anyone but McCoy could have killed him with his own knife. He felt exhausted, wrung out. He had to blink heavily to come back to his surroundings.

McCoy’s hand was curled gently on the nape of his neck, frozen fingers and warm palm. His thumb made small circles against the side of Kirk’s vertebrae, through the short hairs of his neck. It was a mindless gesture, soothing and unconscious. Kirk looked down. McCoy had gone pale with pain, his lips pursed into a grim line and his eyes tightly closed.

Shit.

McCoy made no noise when Kirk withdrew. It was only when Kirk touched his cheek, ran his fingertips along the sharp bone under McCoy’s left eye that he opened his eyes. They were childishly enormous. Kirk touched the skin under his eyebrows, the bone above his eyelashes.

McCoy made a soft, broken sound and turned, ever so slightly, toward Kirk’s hand.

Kirk let go.

McCoy scrambled away as Kirk gave him the room. He rolled to his knees, sat back down, ran his hands through his hair. Kirk wondered with a last thin hope if it would happen now, if McCoy would crack under whatever it was that had held him down while Kirk fucked him.

McCoy didn’t even look at him. He got to his knees again, rose slowly to his feet, and walked away. He was holding his clothes together awkwardly, blood tainting his watery footsteps on the ice until he disappeared behind a boulder.

Kirk assumed he’d stay hidden, intended to let him. But two minutes later Kirk heard McCoy’s strangely light footsteps, saw him unsteadily making his way back. He fell to his knees next to Kirk. He was holding a thin chunk of ice.

McCoy nodded at Kirk’s knuckles, caked with blood where they’d scraped against McCoy’s zipper, caught on his face.

Kirk held out his hand.

McCoy shivered through his torn clothes as he ran the ice over Kirk’s hands, but he never paused, and he never once looked away from Kirk’s knuckles. The blood, which had already started to cake and congeal, liquidized under the rub of the ice, dropping pink onto the floor of the cave. More blood dripped from McCoy’s lips, from his nose, from the slices along his chest and stomach where Kirk had cut him, through the seat of his pants.

When he was done McCoy sat, legs bent in front of him, hunched over himself as he held the remains of his clothes together. He stared into nothing.

Sulu found them there three silent hours later.

The nurses were ready for them when they beamed up, prim and silent as mannequins. McCoy followed them passively. Kirk trailed behind, watched every limping step to Sickbay.

Once they’d arrived M’Benga approached him with the regen machine. Kirk almost waved him off, but then it would be obvious what he was doing -- just watching, he just wanted to see -- so he held out his hand and kept the other on his phaser in case M’Benga tried anything. Kirk knew how doctors were.

McCoy must have felt Kirk’s eyes on him, could plainly see Kirk if he turned his head a little. He never did. Kirk let M’Benga heal one hand and then the other and before he knew it his hands were clean and finished and McCoy still wasn’t looking at him. Kirk inspected his knuckles.

He’d learned early to avoid regen machines; scars and calluses were all that proved you, once the uniform was off. He had been a child the last time one had fixed him, hadn’t remembered the results exactly. He studied his knuckles now: the scrapes were gone, and so were the calluses he’d painstakingly built, the scar between the second and third where Pike had wanted to teach him a lesson, the few stray hairs. Even the wrinkles were gone. The skin was utterly, deceptively smooth.

He found his way over to McCoy. The blonde nurse was running a regen machine over the slashes on McCoy’s chest, while he sat on the biobed and his nipples puckered in the cool air. Three other nurses crowded around, wide-eyed and still. They turned as Kirk approached but did not move away.

“Report to my quarters when you’re finished. Don’t bother changing first.”

McCoy bowed his head in acknowledgement. He did not lift it again.

888888

When McCoy slept his brow smoothed out and he looked ten years younger, all tension melted from his lips. Kirk had watched a hundred lovers breathe deep before he kicked them out or killed them, and all of them had looked like less in the arms of sleep. McCoy looked like something more. He looked like something _different_.

Kirk saw the curve of his spine and the perfectly smooth skin, discolored even in the dark by the bruises from his fall. McCoy jerked at the movement, turning his face further into the pillow and bared more of his back. Kirk ran his hand along the nobs of McCoy’s vertebrae, thought about where the freckles would be, before they’d been healed away. He thought about all the spots he’d licked and bitten, all the flawless planes of McCoy’s body.

The changes in Kirk’s life had always been on a grand, violent scale: a car off a cliff, planet-wide genocide, mad Romulans and madder Vulcans, arterial spray all over a biobed.

He stroked McCoy’s back in the almost-darkness and knew he wasn’t what he’d been before.

888888

McCoy got up like he had every morning since moving to Kirk’s bed, hair ruffled and covered in stubble, doll pliant when Kirk grabbed him before he got out of bed. He turned back, squinted at him and then down at his morning wood, reached for it silently. Kirk pushed him away. McCoy went easy then too, like hitting a speedball, all give under his hands. He watched him shuffle off to the bathroom.

Those bruises would fade.

But it niggled at Kirk as he sat on the bridge, the finely crafted chair somehow uncomfortable. He wanted to see McCoy, wanted him under his hands, wanted to peel him open and find out what was inside. He felt oddly hollow, something ricocheting inside him. It was an itch under his skin, the kind you scratched until you bled and it made no difference.

“You’ve got the conn, Spock,” he said, three hours into his shift. Spock nodded, obviously curious but unwilling to give into it. Kirk knew he should stay, or at least give a reason for going. Unpredictability kept a crew on its toes but irrational behavior always read as weakness, invited assassination or worse.

He didn’t care. They’d assume he wanted a fuck. It was what he wanted.

McCoy was at a biobed when he found him, taking readings and checking it against a PADD, that same stupid stylus at his lips. Kirk had to shake his shoulder to get his attention. He looked up slowly, as if he were still raw from the fuck in the ice cave, couldn’t quite lift his head to meet Kirk’s eyes.

“Come with me.”

McCoy nodded. In the hall he followed five steps behind him, head down like he was heading for his execution. Kirk didn’t like it, wanted something else, itched with the need for it. He punched in the code for his quarters hard enough to make his fingers ache, felt it seep up his arm as he headed for the bedroom. The rooms were silent, the click of their heels muffled by the carpet. McCoy when he stopped, was silent too. He stared expectantly, hair falling into his face and shadows deep under his eyes.

Too quiet. Kirk waved his hands, gesturing nowhere. “You waiting for an engraved invitation? Get naked already.”

Not a word as McCoy pulled off every layer like he was shedding his skin, achingly slow. His clothes fell in a pile at his feet. His body was still beautiful, tight muscle and tighter skin.

“Get on the bed.”

McCoy moved like an old man, bowed over the bed as he crawled onto it, head hanging down between his shoulders as he presented that perfect, fuckable ass.

Kirk wasn’t hard at all.

“Get up.” He’d have McCoy on his knees, let him suck him off quick and dirty and that could be that. But McCoy was still moving so goddamn slowly, like his bones were tired, and Kirk had had _enough_.

“Come _on_.” He yanked at McCoy’s arm, and it should have been just enough to hurry him up but McCoy fell forward like he had no weight to stop him, stumbled smack against Kirk’s chest. Kirk reached out reflexively, and he should have been holding his knife or his phaser or just a fist, but when his hands came up there was just McCoy in them. It was awkward, one arm over McCoy’s shoulder, one under his armpit. Kirk felt electric, all his energy begging him to move, to grip, to pull McCoy in close or shove him away. McCoy was stiff in his grasp, lungs stopped up and heart battering his ribs.

Kirk didn’t move -- not when McCoy pushed against him, not when he went still, not when his hands came up, tentatively, behind Kirk’s back.

“Oh,” McCoy breathed. His body molded against Kirk’s, ribs shaking against Kirk’s with each uneven exhale. His chin came to rest on Kirk’s shoulder, breath loud in Kirk’s ear. Then he sagged, frighteningly heavy in Kirk’s arms.

Kirk held on.  



End file.
